Édouard Glissant

100 Notes, 100 Thoughts: Documenta Series 038

Introduction by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

This notebook is Hans Ulrich Obrist's homage to the French author, poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant (1928-2011). Glissant, one of the most influential figures of the French-speaking Caribbean and a pioneer of postcolonial thinking, called attention to "means of global exchange which do not homogenize culture but produce a difference from which new things can emerge." Obrist encountered Glissant at the beginning of his career, through the recommendation of Alighiero Boetti. In his introduction, Obrist creates a multilayered portrait of the intellectual, laying out some of his key concepts: the creolization of the world, "archipelic thought," and the museum as archipelago, as well as utopia. These ideas are explored by Glissant in a selection of title pages of his books with drawings, notations and poetic dedications that are reproduced here in facsimile.

This notebook is Hans Ulrich Obrist's homage to the French author, poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant (1928-2011). Glissant, one of the most influential figures of the French-speaking Caribbean and a pioneer of postcolonial thinking, called attention to "means of global exchange which do not homogenize culture but produce a difference from which new things can emerge." Obrist encountered Glissant at the beginning of his career, through the recommendation of Alighiero Boetti. In his introduction, Obrist creates a multilayered portrait of the intellectual, laying out some of his key concepts: the creolization of the world, "archipelic thought," and the museum as archipelago, as well as utopia. These ideas are explored by Glissant in a selection of title pages of his books with drawings, notations and poetic dedications that are reproduced here in facsimile.